He has died. The innocent one. The soft and softhearted lover of man—sometimes man’s only consolation, sometimes his bane. His end, the end of innocence is what robs us of our hope in the world—for hope made of furry innocence, manifest and plopped in our lap and to stick its dumb tongue up our nostrils out of curiosity, and flavor; innocence stolen without sense steals hope along with it. For that to be sentenced to die…ah, something is wrong in the world, wrong with us, wrong. This furball’s only sin is to have reminded us of this terrible truth: something is wrong in the world. Something good has gone. Something bad has won the light from our hearts. His name might as well be sun, for he has set us lo’ unto the dirt with his own sinking. An innocent pup I do not know has broken my friends’ hearts and reminded us all of dizzying temporality and throwness into an often unfair world—that we suppose fairness should be at all, a travesty of its own, but recourse at least we have unto the tragic comedy—a gift from the gods that keeps them fed, without which we’d all simply dig our holes in the dirt and crawl in just to starve them of our laughter, and ourselves of our tears…recourse to puppy tongues in our nostrils, the comic’s relief. Goodbye floof. Goodbye love. Goodbye smiling spirit. Today is dark. Such is the power of your light. Mother Earth, bring us another. We cannot be long without these comedians.